Paint rollers are widely used as a practical means of rapidly painting any surface. The roller operated by temporarily absorbing substantial quantities of paint and releasing this under pressure in the rolling action. Depending on the type of paint to be applied, the surface to be painted and the desired finish a paint roller may be formed of a sponge material or a fleecy wool fibre. Other types are rollers are used but perhaps less commonly.
However it can be observed that in most cases once the painter has finished the roller still retains significant quantities of paint in the nap of the roller. This presents several difficulties to the operator. Firstly, paint is expensive and is it undesirable that large quantities should be wasted. There is therefore a need to retrieve as much paint as possible from the roller for later use. Secondly, if paint is allowed to dry on the roller it hardens and renders the roller useless for future use, again a significant cost to the user. There is therefore a need to clean the roller thoroughly for future use.
Cleaning paint from a roller presents its own set of difficulties to the user. Paint typically includes a dispersion of finely divided particles in solvents and pigments. Removing all traces of paint sufficient to avoid clogging the roller as described and also to avoid the risk contaminating any future paint used on the roller has in the past requires very large quantities of water and can be very messy. More importantly the disposal of solvents and paint waste into the domestic waste water system is environmentally undesirable and in some locations prohibited by legislation.
There is therefore a need for paint rollers to be able to be cleaned in a manner that minimises water usage and that confines any water or cleaning fluid for collection and separate disposal
Paint roller cleaners are known from the prior art in various forms. The inventor of the present invention has identified a number of difficulties with known prior art forms of cleaners. In some instances large volumes of water are used in the cleaning process thereby creating a problem related to the disposal of the contaminated water. In other prior art systems water is used to clean significant quantities of paint from a roller. This situation leads to both the disposal problems noted above and is, of course also very wasteful of paint.
A further significant difficulty associated with known paint roller cleaning assemblies occurs as a result of the necessity of handling a paint roller charged with paint to be cleaned. In many cases, in order to secure a paint roller in a cleaning apparatus the paint roller has to be separated from its handle, or at least, the operator will need to grasp the roller in a way that makes close contact between the operator and paint charged roller inevitable. The operators hands thus become significantly affected by paint contamination and therefore need cleaning as well.
The present invention addresses itself to the above situation and presents an alternative to prior art paint roller cleaners.